Hopelessness and violence among inner-city youths

Ethnographic literature on inner-city life argues that adolescents react to their uncertain (and objectively bleak) future by abandoning hope; this, in turn, leads them to engage in risk behaviors, including violence, with considerable frequency. This study empirically measures the pervasiveness of hopelessness and uncertainty about the future among inner-city adolescents and documents the link between hopelessness, uncertainty, and risk behavior.

We surveyed a sample of 583 adolescents (aged 9-19) living in public housing in Huntsville, AL; this constitutes 80% of the eligible population. Each participant in the survey received $10. Their responses yielded empirical distributions for hopelessness, uncertainty about the future, and four violent behaviors. Using OLS regression, we examined the effect of hopelessness on these violent behaviors.

Hopelessness about the future was relatively rare, affecting only 20-30% of the respondents. However, it was a strong predictor of fighting and carrying a knife for females, and of carrying a knife, carrying a gun, and pulling a knife or gun on someone else for males. Uncertainty about the future was more prevalent, but unrelated to the violent behaviors.

These results suggest that the conclusions of the ethnographic literature are only partially valid: While hopelessness is, in fact, strongly related to risk behavior, it is not nearly so prevalent as is generally assumed.